Vegas Spread Index

The Vegas Spread Index ranks teams by estimating who the odds makers would favor from top to bottom. Each team’s VSI indicates by how many points that team would be favored against an average opponent.

Year: 2009 | 2008 |

Week: Pre-season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |

Vegas Spread Index- Week 8 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Texas	27.5
2	Florida	25.5
3	Oklahoma	24
4	Alabama	21.5
5	Southern Cal	20
6	TCU	18
7	Boise St.	17.5
8	Virginia Tech	16.5
9	Penn St.	15.5
10	Mississippi	15
11	Oklahoma St.	15
12	Nebraska	14.5
13	LSU	14.5
14	Oregon	14
15	Ohio St.	14
16	Miami	13
17	Georgia Tech	13
18	Clemson	12.5
19	Texas Tech	12
20	California	11.5
21	Cincinnati	11
22	Tennessee	11
23	Arkansas	10.5
24	Pittsburgh	10
25	Iowa	9.5
26	Georgia	9.5
27	South Carolina	9
28	Auburn	9
29	West Virginia	8.5
30	Kansas	8
31	Stanford	8
32	Arizona	7.5
33	Michigan St.	7
34	Notre Dame	6.5
35	Oregon St.	6.5
36	Wisconsin	6
37	Missouri	6
38	Michigan	6
39	BYU	6
40	Houston	6
41	Utah	5.5
42	Connecticut	5
43	Boston College	5
44	Fresno St.	4.5
45	Kentucky	4
46	Florida St.	4
47	Tulsa	4
48	Texas A&M	4
49	Mississippi St	3.5
50	Wake Forest	3
51	Purdue	3
52	Cent. Michigan	3
53	North Carolina	3
54	Troy	2.5
55	Southern Miss.	2.5
56	Nevada	2
57	South Florida	2
58	Arizona St.	2
59	Kansas St.	1
60	Virginia	0.5
61	UCLA	0
62	Rutgers	0
63	Iowa St.	-0.5
64	Minnesota	-0.5
65	N.C. State	-0.5
66	Colorado	-1
67	Air Force	-1
68	Navy	-1
69	Washington	-1
70	Vanderbilt	-1.5
71	Baylor	-2
72	Northwestern	-2
73	UCF	-3.5
74	East Carolina	-3.5
75	Marshall	-4
76	Duke	-4
77	Illinois	-4.5
78	Indiana	-5
79	Louisville	-5
80	Maryland	-5
81	Temple	-5
82	Arkansas St.	-6
83	N. Illinois	-6
84	Syracuse	-7
85	UTEP	-7
86	Ohio	-7.5
87	Colorado St.	-8
88	San Diego St.	-8
89	Middle Tenn. St.	-8.5
90	Wyoming	-8.5
91	Utah St.	-9
92	W. Michigan	-9
93	Bowling Green	-9
94	Idaho	-9.5
95	Louisiana Tech	-9.5
96	Kent St.	-9.5
97	SMU	-10
98	Memphis	-10
99	Buffalo	-10.5
100	UAB	-10.5
101	Toledo	-10.5
102	Fla. Atlantic	-10.5
103	La.-Monroe	-10.5
104	UNLV	-13
105	Akron	-14
106	San Jose St.	-14.5
107	Army	-15
108	Florida Intl	-15.5
109	Hawaii	-16
110	La.-Lafayette	-16
111	Tulane	-17.5
112	Ball St.	-18
113	Miami (Ohio)	-18.5
114	North Texas	-18.5
115	Washington St.	-19
116	New Mexico	-21.5
117	Rice	-22.5
118	New Mexico St.	-22.5
119	E. Michigan	-24
120	W. Ky	-27

Computing the Vegas Spread Index

The primary inputs for calculating the Vegas Spread Index are the weekly Las Vegas lines which reflect the collective wisdom of the odds makers and every fan who votes with their wallet.

In theory, a team’s VSI should be simple and straight forward to compute with the help of the transitive property of mathematics. For example if Florida is 10 points better than Tennessee and Tennessee is 7 points better than Kentucky, then Florida is 17 points better than Kentucky.

Play this computation out for 50+ college football games a week over 15 weeks (or literally thousands of games for college basketball season) and, voila! you have honed in on the strength of every team.

In practice however, examining every game, outcome, and spread reveals some surprising complexities that must be resolved to maintain accurate numbers. These variations include:

• Adjusting for home field advantage - which is nowhere near as straightforward as it sounds
• Balancing if point spread differences are more a reflection of the strength of the favorite team or the weakness of the underdog
• Maintaining the integrity of a quantitative formula while striving to reflect a myriad of external and human factors including injuries, rivalry games, coaching changes, rematches, postponements, etc